Blind to sameness : sexpectations and the social construction of male and female bodies

What is the role of the senses in how we understand the world? Cognitive sociology has long addressed the way we perceive or imagine boundaries in our ordinary lives, but Asia Friedman pushes this question further still. How, she asks, did we come to blind ourselves to sex sameness? Drawing on more than sixty interviews with two decidedly different populations—the blind and the transgendered— Blind to Sameness answers provocative questions about the relationships between sex differences, biology, and visual perception. Both groups speak from unique perspectives that magnify the social construction of dominant visual conceptions of sex, allowing Friedman to examine the visual construction of the sexed body and highlighting the processes of social perception underlying our everyday experience of male and female bodies. The result is a notable contribution to the sociologies of gender, culture, and cognition that will revolutionize the way we think about sex. Introduction Toward a sociology of perception Expectations, selective attention, and social construction Filter analysis Selective perception and the social construction of sex Sexpectations and socio-mental control Sex difference as a social filter Perception and the social construction of the body Selective attention: what we actually see when we see sex Transdar and transition: transgender "expert" knowledge of sex cues The sound of sex A sex cue can be anything (as long as it provides information about sex) Cognitive distortions in seeing sex Polarization Blind to sameness Transgender narratives and the filter of transition A blind phenomenology of sexed bodies Sex differences in proportion Seeking sameness Sex without polarization Drawing textbooks: sameness despite polarization Genitals, gonads, and genes Sex sameness as a rhetorical strategy Conclusion: excess, continua, and the flexible mind Emphasizing excess The sex/gender continuum Cognitive flexibility Appendix: methodological notes. "What is the role of the senses in how we understand the world? Cognitive sociology has long addressed the way we perceive or imagine boundaries in our ordinary lives, but Asia Friedman pushes this question further still. How, she asks, did we come to blind ourselves to sex sameness? Drawing on more than sixty interviews with two decidedly different populations--the blind and the transgendered--Blind to Sameness answers provocative questions about the relationships between sex differences, biology, and visual perception. The result is a notable contribution to the sociologies of gender, culture, and cognition that will revolutionize the way we think about sex."--Publisher description. "What is the role of the senses in how we understand the world? Cognitive sociology has long addressed the way we perceive or imagine boundaries in our ordinary lives, but Asia Friedman pushes this question further still. How, she asks, did we come to blind ourselves to sex sameness? Drawing on more than sixty interviews with two decidedly different populations--the blind and the transgendered--Blind to Sameness answers provocative questions about the relationships between sex differences, biology, and visual perception. The result is a notable contribution to the sociologies of gender, culture, and cognition that will revolutionize the way we think about sex."--Publisher information The author explores the role of the senses in how people understand the world. She uses cognitive sociology to answer the question how people came to blind themselves to sex sameness. Drawing on interviews with two different populations - the blind and the transgendered - the author explores relationships between sex differences, biology and visual perception What is the role of the senses in how we understand the world? Drawing on more than sixty interviews with two decidedly different populations - the blind and the transgendered, this title answers provocative questions about the relationships between sex differences, biology, and visual perception. Drawing on more than 60 interviews with two decidedly different populations - the blind and the transgendered - this book answers provocative questions about the relationships between sex differences, biology, and visual perception